The two women, both high-powered chief executives during their years in Silicon Valley, say they are good friends, despite reports to the contrary.

A Whitman spokesman said the “Gen-M 2010” Twitter account is run by volunteers.

[Updated at 4:33 p.m.: The Twitter page for "Gen-M 2010" and all of the groups' tweets have been deleted. A visitor attempting to view the page is told "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

Updated at 5:56 p.m.: A Whitman spokesman e-mails that the group has actually changed itsTwitter handle to "GenMVolunteers." The former "Gen-M 2010" tweets can be found there. "They wanted to make sure that it was explicit that they were independent volunteers and that their grass-roots efforts weren’t misinterpreted," said spokesman Darrel Ng.]

A Fiorina spokeswoman said the candidate stood by her record.

“While Barbara Boxer has been in Washington for 28 years passing laws that create more regulations and higher taxes and force companies to send jobs elsewhere, Carly Fiorina has been in the real world creating jobs and making the tough choices required when government makes it harder to do business,” said spokeswoman Julie Soderlund.